John Wooden’s MAXIMS

As my Pinnacle Performance clients well know, John Wooden is one of my all-time favorite inspirational figures, leaders/mentors from outside of the business world. He passed away 4 months shy of his 100th birthday in June 2010.

Simply put, John Wooden was the greatest coach in collegiate basketball history with a winning record second to no one. As the head coach, he led UCLA to 10 NCAA national championships in a 12-year period – including 7 in a row – a feat never achieved before or since. Within the same period, he coached a record 88 consecutive wins and was named “coach of the year” six times. He is also the first and still only person ever inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player (for Purdue) and as a coach.

As remarkably impressive as all that is, it is how he trained his players and built winning teams that truly sets him apart as one of the greatest mentors of all time. Coach Wooden believed that if players were going to be winners on the court then they also needed to be winners off the court.

The “Pyramid of Success” below was the cornerstone of his teachings and features building-block principles that we all can apply to achieve Pinnacle Performance on the job and life in general.

John Wooden was beloved by his players for his “maxims” – short, simple inspirational messages that made players think about what they were doing today and how they could be better tomorrow like this one on the Pyramid sheet:

“Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.”

Click-On the links below to view the original posts of more of John Wooden’s Maxims